Research Space, the organization behind the leading research data management platform RSpace, today announced the release of RSpace's codebase as an open-source project licensed under AGPL 3.0. This strategic move underscores Research Space's commitment to open science principles and marks an extension of their customer-centric product development philosophy towards an open collaborative community that can collectively enhance and extend RSpace's capabilities for managing and producing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) research data.

Designed to seamlessly integrate with existing research infrastructure and tools, RSpace has been instrumental in enabling researchers and institutions to establish FAIR data workflows. By embracing open-source development, Research Space invites contributions from customers, partners, and the wider research software development community to actively participate in improving the platform, customizing existing features, or building new functionalities tailored to their specific needs. This community-driven approach empowers a broader audience to leverage the power of RSpace and contribute to its evolution.

While maintaining the RSpace project and encouraging community involvement, Research Space remains dedicated to providing expert support and integration services through its RSpace Solutions offerings. These vendor-certified, enterprise-grade services are designed to help research and research infrastructure organizations optimize their research data management processes, achieve greater efficiency, and ensure continuous production of FAIR-compliant data with a certified RSpace deployment.

"We are excited to transition RSpace to an open-source model," said Rory Macneil, CEO of Research Space. "By embracing open science principles and fostering a collaborative community, we believe RSpace will become an even more versatile platform, enabling researchers and institutions worldwide to produce FAIR research data with greater ease and flexibility. We are looking forward to supporting research organizations in this endeavor with our expertise."

"RSpace exemplifies what it means to be truly community-minded in the research ecosystem, prioritizing collaboration and integration over isolation and redundancy,” said John Chodacki, Director, University of California Curation Center (UC3). “Their commitment to open-sourcing their code is a testament to their dedication to fostering innovation and supporting the broader scientific community."

“At UCL, we regard RSpace as a key partner in building our ecosystem to enable first-class data management and FAIR data. Our bi-weekly consultation and feedback meetings have been invaluable, allowing us to continuously tailor the platform to our specific needs and ensure it evolves with our requirements,” said James Wilson, Head of Research Data Services, University College London, ARC Research Data Group. “The move to open-source the RSpace code promises to deepen this relationship further, as we can collaboratively contribute to the code base and respond to our researchers needs in an even more agile manner.”

"Electronic lab notebooks are essential tools which help researchers make their research outputs Findable Accessible Reusable and Interoperable (FAIR) from the start. The transition of RSpace from proprietary to free and open-source software empowers the research community by increasing transparency and trust, but also by enabling innovation and co-creation," said Marta Teperek, Programme Leader FAIR Research Data, Open Science NL.

The open-sourcing of RSpace marks a significant milestone in the advancement of open science and FAIR data adoption, representing a new era of collaboration and innovation within the research community. For more information about the open-source initiative, please visit https://github.com/rspace-os.  

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About Research Space

Research Space is the maintainer of the open-source research data management platform RSpace and enterprise service provider for research organizations to implement, adopt, and maintain a modern and sustainable FAIR research data ecosystem.

www.researchspace.com  

press@researchspace.com

opensource@researchspace.com